


I know a guy

by Blissymbolics, skeilig



Series: I know a guy [1]
Category: Barry (TV 2018), IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Gen, M/M, it's not even crack i believe richie tozier and noho hank are ex boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26530096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blissymbolics/pseuds/Blissymbolics, https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeilig/pseuds/skeilig
Summary: “Okay, Richie. I should tell you. I don’t work for American Airlines. I’m in the Chechen Brotherhood.”“Oh, I know. I googled your tattoos after the first time we met.”Or, Richie used to date a mobster. This eventually comes in handy.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, NoHo Hank/Richie Tozier
Series: I know a guy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930762
Comments: 51
Kudos: 262





	I know a guy

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I’ve been joking (“joking”) about this ship for almost a year. And now I’m here, humbly offering you some garbage. Your honor, I love them, I un-ironically ship Hank/Richie. I want Hank to leave his life of crime and run a B&B with Richie or, alternately, stay in the mob and support Richie’s comedy career while Richie looks the other way and is willfully ignorant. They could get married since you can’t be forced to testify against your spouse, or you can’t both be tried for the same crime, or whatever.
> 
> \+ This is now part 1 of the "i know a guy" series where bliss and I are gonna write Hank fics back and forth. Subscribe to the series if you want to follow future installments!

He definitely wasn’t Richie’s type; or he was, maybe, in some weird sort of cartoon way. He was a bit shorter than Richie and compact, lean and muscular. He had big dark brown eyes. But he had absolutely no hair, which was noticeable in the photos, of course, but more noticeable upon meeting. 

No eyebrows or eyelashes, either. His forearms were muscled and veiny. He wore a preppy polo shirt, sporty sunglasses perched on his smooth head, and nice chinos. He spoke in lilted, accented English. “Hello, Richie. How are you doing today?” 

It sounded Russian to Richie’s very untrained ear. Definitely some flavor of Eastern European. It also sounded a little bit like a Voice, like a character thing. 

So that’s why, when Richie responded, he mimicked the accent back at him. “Hi, Hank, right? From the Grindr?”

Richie found something very comedic about saying ‘Grindr’ in a bad Russian accent, so he laughed out loud after he said it. 

But Hank just looked at him, his expression faltering. He laughed a little nervously. 

“Sorry,” Richie blurted, realizing his mistake all at once. “Oh, fuck. I look like a total asshole now. I thought you were doing a bit. Like, a sexy stranger bit. I dunno. People do weird shit. Like copy peoples’ accents back at them! That’s probably sorta racist. Shit. Sorry.”

Hank, it turned out, was from Chechnya. Richie had no idea where that is, but he hummed knowingly when Hank mentioned it for fear of looking like even more of an oblivious jackass. Hank also knew more about Los Angeles than Richie could ever dream to. They walked out on the pier and ate crab cakes and Hank spoke about the city like a tour guide. Richie listened, grinning, soaking up the sun. His dates or hookups were usually not half this fun. Richie had always liked weird people and he was already spinning this occasion into a standup set. Too bad he was closeted. He’d have to invent another reason for their meeting. 

Hours later, while they were walking down the boardwalk and drinking bubble tea, Richie took his chance. “So, do you wanna come back to my place?” 

Hank was very complimentary of Richie’s Long Beach apartment, to the point of near absurdity. Richie’s place was nice but it wasn’t _that_ nice. Richie got him a drink, a beer from his fridge and they sat on the edge of Richie’s bed because his apartment was a studio with nowhere else to sit. But that was fine because it nudged them in the right direction. As they chatted, Richie shifted closer to him, finally resting a hand on his thigh. 

“I haven’t done this before,” Hank admitted with a shy smile, and it didn’t even seem like a line. 

It was cute, okay? He was really cute. And Richie… really liked it when he got to take care of someone. He always had. 

“What’s with the… no hair thing?” Richie asked him later, when they were lying in bed and he could no longer fight his own curiosity. He ran his hands over Hank’s perfectly smooth chest. “You wax?” 

“I have alopecia,” Hank explained, not seeming offended by the question in the least. 

“Gesundheit,” Richie said and leaned down to kiss him. 

The third time they hooked up, Hank said afterward, very seriously, “Okay, Richie. I should tell you. I don’t work for American Airlines. I’m in the Chechen Brotherhood.”

Richie tried not to laugh. “Oh, I know. I googled your tattoos after the first time we met.”

Hank’s eyebrows raised. Or, well, his brow ridge lifted. “You knew?

“Yeah, but it’s cool,” Richie assured him. “I can dig it. You seem like a cool guy.”

“Thanks, Richie. That’s a big relief, honestly.”

“Is this one of those ‘now you have to kill me’ situations?” Richie asked.

Hank laughed a lot at that, which started out reassuring, disarming, but then became less so as he kept laughing for nearly a full minute. Then he said, “No.”

And Richie said, “Okay. Sweet.”

* * *

Hank used to come to Richie’s standup shows and he had the loudest laugh in the house. At that time, Richie was mostly working in LA with an odd out of town show at small clubs in San Francisco or Portland. He thought the standup would be a bridge to something else, movie parts or writing, but he never really managed to break through. The comedy took him farther than he expected, however, so he rolled with it.

When Richie’s career started to take off in earnest, they started to drift apart. Richie would leave for tour for a month or two at a time. Besides, Hank seemed more stressed of late. The last time he saw him, Hank had clearly recently been shot in the shoulder—he was patched up and sore—but Richie never asked about those things. He was more distant, anyway. Distracted. 

It had been a few years since he’d seen Hank. However, Hank still texted him on his birthdays—always some hilariously sincere meme accompanied by the confetti or balloon effect—and most recently sent Richie a screenshot of a tabloid article about the incident in Chicago, when he ran off the stage.

_Everything okay, man?_

This accompanied by the grimacing emoji. 

Richie got the text when he landed in Bangor and turned his phone back on. It came in along with a flood of similar messages, hesitant inquiries from friends, and far more demanding ones from his tour manager, Steve. 

All this to say, Richie and Hank were still in touch. They were still friendly, even. 

That’s why, when the dust settles in Derry and the Losers find themselves with a dead body to dispose of—a dead body that Richie put there—Richie has an idea.

“Hey,” Richie says, interrupting his friends’ brainstorming session. “I might know a guy.”

They’re standing in the library, forming a half circle around Henry Bowers’ slumped corpse. 

“You ‘know a guy’?” Eddie repeats dryly. “You know a guy for…” He gestures at the bloated body on the floor. “For _this?_ ”

“Yeah, he’s an ex but he’s… He would know what to do.”

“What kind of guys do you date?” Eddie asks, flailing his arms, but Bev interrupts. 

“Is it a good idea to involve another person in this?” she asks. “I mean. Seems sloppy to tell anyone.”

“No, he’d be discreet,” Richie assures them. “Besides, it’s my neck on the line, right? Give me a second.” 

Richie scrolls through his phone until he finds the text from Hank from the other day. He never responded, considering he got distracted with other things. Now he does reply: 

_Hey, I’m fine, thanks, but something happened. Can I call?_

Barely a minute after Richie sends it, his screen lights up with an incoming call. 

“Hey, man,” Richie answers, turning away from the other Losers for some semblance of privacy.

Eddie mutters, “Who the fuck is he calling?” 

“Richie!” Hank greets enthusiastically. “How are you? Long time no see!” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay,” Richie says, unable to help the smile that spreads across his voice at the sound of Hank’s cheerful voice. “Sorry to call out of the blue. Do you have a minute?”

“Of course, Richie, I always have time for you.”

Richie chuckles fondly and he hears Eddie say, “What the _fuck_ ,” again. 

“Okay, so. I’m in Maine.” 

“Ah, the Pine Tree State.”

Richie furrows his brow. “Uh, sure, so. I’m in Maine, and there’s this guy—he’s a really bad guy—and he attacked my friends, and I… y’know. I made sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again. Capisce?” 

Richie grimaces a little at himself. Why is he trying to talk like a mobster? That’s embarrassing. Like he’s some big tough guy. He has a body count of exactly one and he threw up twice and cried once about it. 

“Say no more,” Hank says, his voice somber now. “You need help cleaning it up?”

Richie’s shoulders sink in relief. “Yes. Yes, exactly. Thank you.”

“CB has friends in Bangor,” Hank tells him. “I’ll take care of everything, just text me address. When the guys get there, you should make yourself scarce okay? I don’t want anyone to see you there.” 

“Okay. Okay,” Richie says nodding rapidly. “Thank you so much, Hank. I owe you one. I owe you, like, thirty.” 

“Don’t mention it, Richie,” Hank says, back to his chipper tone of voice. “It’s my pleasure.” 

When Richie hangs up, he turns around to face his friends again. They’re all staring at him, mouths hanging open and eyes wide. 

Richie taps his phone against his palm, once, decisively. “Okay. So. He’s gonna send some guys up from Bangor to clean this up. He said don’t be here when they arrive, so… Ándale.” He waves his hands at them, starting to shoo them out of the library. 

None of them budge. “Richie,” Eddie says, the vein in his forehead twitching. “Are you gonna tell us who– _the fuck_ – you were talking to just now?” 

“Yeah,” Ben says cautiously. “Why do you… know guys who clean up dead bodies?” 

Richie sighs, rubbing his temples. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you back at the Townhouse.”

* * *

Months and months later, back home in LA, Richie takes Eddie to one of his favorite bakeries in Van Nuys. This is how they’ve been spending almost every weekend since Eddie moved in, Richie sharing parts of the city with him, before they would go back home and spend the rest of the day snuggled up together. It’s the happiest Richie’s been in years.

Today, when they go into the bakery, at first there’s no one behind the counter. So they stand there waiting. Richie takes Eddie’s hand and points out items in the case. 

“The babka is, like, fucking amazing. We’re definitely getting that.” 

“Is the coffee good here?” Eddie asks. He yawns massively, his grip tightening on Richie’s hand as he does. 

“It’s not… _good_ , but it’s like… It’s part of the experience.”

“What does that even mean, Richie?” 

They’re interrupted when the employee bursts out of the back room, rubbing his floury hands on his apron. “So sorry, guys, I didn’t see you standing here!”

Richie recognizes the accent first. 

Hank stops in his tracks for a moment, staring wide-eyed at Richie and then glancing to Eddie. He smiles. “Oh hi, Richie.” 

Richie is too shocked to smile back, blinking a few times. “Hi, um. Hank. Hey, man. What are you…?”

“I made a deal with the DA,” he explains, winking at Richie. 

Richie doesn’t quite understand what that means. He’ll have to look up LA crime news later. He’s fallen out of the habit. 

Hank turns his attention to Eddie and says, “Who is this?”

Eddie glances between Richie and Hank, more confused by the second. “Uh.”

“This is Eddie,” Richie interrupts. “My boyfriend.” 

“Oh, great to meet you Eddie,” Hank says. “You two make such a cute couple.” 

“Thanks,” Richie says, beaming. He can feel Eddie’s eyes boring into him but he doesn’t glance in his direction. “So, I told Eddie this place has the best babka in LA.”

“Oh, we do,” Hank says, grinning. He opens the case. “You want a babka? Maybe two babkas?” 

“One is enough,” Richie tells him. “And two coffees. Thanks.” 

Hank packs up the babka, pours the coffees, says, “Thanks for visiting! Come back soon!” and, “Nice to meet you, Eddie.”

Eddie, who’s been growing progressively paler over the past few minutes, nods and smiles tightly and says, “Yeah, nice to… to… Yeah.” 

Once they’re outside, Richie shepherding Eddie back to the car, Eddie asks in a hissed whisper, “Richie, who was that guy? You said Hank? Isn’t that—?”

“Yep,” Richie confirms, steering Eddie down the sidewalk with one hand between his shoulderblades. “That’s the guy. My ex.”

“That guy’s a mobster?” Eddie asks, glancing over his shoulder back at the unassuming storefront. 

“Was, I think,” Richie corrects. “Past tense. I’m happy for him. I think he wanted to get out.” 

When they reach the car, Richie hands the babka to Eddie so he can hold it while they drive home. 

Eddie chuckles disbelievingly, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I pictured but he’s so… _nice_.” 

“Yeah,” Richie agrees. “He’s a super nice guy.”


End file.
